One of the Nation's Most-Visited Contemporary Museums Sits Next Door

From the residential calm of Lowry Hill, it is easy to forget what stands at the edge of the neighborhood. The Walker Art Center is regularly counted among the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States. Together with the adjacent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and Cowles Conservatory, it draws roughly 700,000 visitors a year, many from well beyond the Upper Midwest.

The draw is the program. The Walker runs a dense rotation of exhibitions, a respected performing-arts season, and serious work in design and film, all anchored by the free Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The garden holds more than 60 large-scale works, including Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's "Spoonbridge and Cherry," and is open free of charge from 6 a.m. to midnight every day of the year. Because it is free and open daily, it lowers the barrier for anyone curious about the institution and converts passersby into visitors.

For the neighborhood, that national profile is a mixed but mostly welcome arrangement. Visitors fill the garden paths and the cafe, add foot traffic and, on busy days, compete for the same parking and quiet that residents value. The same crowds sustain a cultural anchor that supports nearby businesses and gives Lowry Hill a landmark few neighborhoods its size can claim.

Living beside a destination museum means treating the extraordinary as ordinary. A visitor who flies in for a weekend experiences the Walker as a rare event; a neighbor can experience it as a Tuesday, an hour with one show and a walk through the garden before dinner. The museum also offers free admission to the galleries on Target Free Thursday nights from 5 to 9 p.m., the first Saturday of each month, and year-round for visitors under 18.

Sources: Walker Art Center,; Wikipedia,